Maillard. Louis. 30 ans, né à Rennes (Ille & Vilaine). Employé de commerce. Anarchiste. 27/2/94. 1894

This is a mugshot made by Alphonse Bertillon in the late 19th century, with gelatin silver print on cardboard. Photography, as a technique, sits ambiguously between art and science. In the late 1800s, it was quickly becoming an important tool for documentation, classification, and control. Looking closely, you see the tonal range achieved by the rather complex chemical process. This endows the image with a kind of authority. Bertillon was a French police officer, and here he's using photography to create a record, identifying Maillard through reproducible, supposedly objective means. But consider the social context: Maillard's profession is listed as "Employé de commerce," a commercial employee, and his political affiliation as "Anarchiste." The photograph, in its starkness, becomes a tool of surveillance and power, capturing not just an image but also a social identity deemed threatening to the established order. It is important to remember that the photograph also represents a person, a life, and a set of beliefs. We are left to ponder the interplay between the individual, the medium, and the broader societal forces at play.